Going Beyond Boundaries: How Allyship Fuels Inclusion

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you all for being here today. We are thrilled and excited to share with you the journey that we've been on as employee resource groups across the globe and how allyship has been one of our core pillars to fostering a more inclusive environment for everyone. I'm Cordero Davis. And I lead our global employee resource groups for Autodesk.

Today I will have four of our amazing leads, even though we have nine. They're all amazing. But I love the four.

[LAUGHTER]

Share some stories about how employee resource groups not only influence, but drive a deep connection, a world class employee experience for everyone who's different, everyone who may even believe that they don't belong, and even people who, it's their first day in the workplace, and they don't have a friend. Employee resource groups that friend or that partner. And as we continue to build connection across the world, we're able to connect people from all walks of life.

Today we're going to go on a journey of discovery, exploration, learning, and practice. Discovery is so important. I start by sharing a little bit of the story of how allyship has played a role in my life, my career here at Autodesk, and how I got here today. But that-- that's just a piece of it. I had to do the last three things to get to where I am today. Exploring what it meant to build a career that's intentional, that is a part of my core values as a human being. Learn what does it mean to actually drive a career that is intentional, when you've never had a role model to show you. And then, practice, what does it really mean to even be intentional.

And today, our leads are going to share their stories as well. This year, as you see, I'm here at AU with our robot, I believe it's Irma. But last year, I was at I was invited to AU in New Orleans with my amazing teammate Mitch, who's not here today. Hi, Mitch. He's in Barcelona.

But I share this because, a year ago, I didn't have a connection to Autodesk. I didn't have a connection with our employee resource groups or communities around the world. But today, we're here on stage. About a year and a half ago, I got a call from one of my clients. And my client stated, Cordero, I'm sorry, we're going to cut consultant dollars. And we may not be able to have you here next year.

And in that moment, I wanted to panic. But like the triple threat I am, I handled it with poise and resilience, and I leaned on my network. I told my client, I said, I have not put myself out in a couple of years, and I'm not sure what this means for me next. And in that conversation, she said, I'm going to support you, whether you're here or not.

A week later, my client went to a chief diversity officer conference. And at that conference, she met our previous VP of culture, diversity, and belonging, Rita. Let's give it up for Rita.

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Yeah, she met-- she met our previous coach diversity, and belonging leader at this conference. And she stated, I need help with my ERGs. I don't know where to start. I can't find the talent. Instantly, that leader responded, you need Cordero Davis.

Allyship not only plays a role when you are in need, but when you are gifted. And when there may be a gap or an opportunity for people to share your gifts, in that moment, Rita took it upon herself to introduce me to Ramona, our previous diversity and belonging leader.

And I'm here today, a year later. And AU last year, we didn't have a panel. We didn't have space for conversation, for dialogue, for connection. This year, we've hosted 9 plus events at AU. Yesterday we had almost 50 plus members in each of our meet UPS, from our amazing ABN Autodesk Black network, to our amazing Indigenous Network, the hard work that they put in, connected individuals and customers even here at this conference to show how strong allyship inclusion and connection truly is.

I wanted to share that story with you today because I wouldn't be at AU 2023 without connection, influence, and allyship. You may ask, what is allyship? Anyone want to take a stab at, what is allyship? What is allyship mean to you? Taking a show of hands, anybody?

No, not connected yet? The last three days, who's lost? How much money have you all lost? Who's been gambling? Huh? Huh? How much money have you lost? I'm sorry. I want to pick up the energy in the crowd. Can we turn on some music, please? Thank you, yes, let's pick up the energy in the crowd a little bit. My storytelling probably just dampens you all out.

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I talk all the time. I'm talking all day, literally.

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Yes, brother, here.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, I think, it's a loaded term. And it can mean different things in different context. What I like to think about allyship as individuals in support of [INAUDIBLE] justice.

CORDERO DAVIS: Love it, love it. Let's give it up for that brother.

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Anyone else like to take a stab? Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: Somebody-- a relationship where somebody can be a champion for you, being a voice.

CORDERO DAVIS: Love it, love it, being a voice, yes.

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One more person. I know someone's excited. Yes, ma'am, yeah.

AUDIENCE: Supporting someone even when you don't really understand their story yet.

CORDERO DAVIS: Love it, love it, thank you. According to SHRM, which is the Senior Human Resources Management organization over 82% of employees feel alone in the workplace. According to Forbes, 50% of employees that have felt a sense of loneliness, when they are in environments where active allyship is practiced, their performance increases by 50%. And 56% are less likely to leave their organization.

Allyship is critical. It is one of the daunting, missing core values in many, many organizations, particularly we talk about in America. But when it is practiced, it is a gift. It's transformative. And it changes lives.

I'd love for you all to take a moment to think of a time when you needed an ally, but did not have one. If you could tune into our SLIDO by scanning the barcode on the screen, and just share one to two words to describe how it made you feel.

Thank you. [INAUDIBLE]

Thank you. I'll share two words of how it made me feel, empowered. And it made me feel safe, safe and empowered. Yeah, we want to grab the mic.

RAMONA: All right, so as we are looking at how people felt when they didn't have an ally, the answers that I'm getting here is lonely, alone, disheartened, abandoned, siloed.

CORDERO DAVIS: Perfect, thank you, Ramona. Lonely, abandoned, disheartened, that makes it a hard day to be at work, right, or to be anywhere. Even if you think of the staff in a grocery store, the team at a restaurant, how sad would it feel to make meals all day, and you don't feel included, right? I mean, for myself, food has to be made with love. And I think that when you ship love, especially in the workplace, it teaches you to be things that you never imagined.

In 2020, our professional and personal became so interconnected that a lot of times, when something happens at home, it's happening at work too. You can't separate from the two, whether you go to the room downstairs, or you take a break and take a walk. It's still happening, especially if you're in meetings all day like myself.

The house can be on fire downstairs, while you're in a meeting. And you still you have to get up and put the fire out. And just imagine working moms with little ones that are extremely active. To feel lonely in the workplace, it's not a good feeling. So I like to take-- I like each of you to take a moment and look at our next question. Think of a time when someone showed up for you as an ally. How did that make you feel?

If you can put one to two words in a SLIDO, that would be great. Thank you. Great, great, great.

OK so, the words are starting to come in. And the one that I see most here is valued, empowered, grateful, happy, supported, safe, respected, confident, energized.

Wow, respected, confident, energized, how often-- by show of hands, how often do we feel that way in the workplace? OK, OK, I see a lot of Autodesk is raising their hand, so this must be--

[LAUGHTER]

Wow, respected, confident, and energized, I'd like to-- and I believe I probably answered that question a little earlier, right? I did, and that's OK. I put myself in timeout sometimes. But no, I like to take this moment to welcome our illustrious panelists to the stage.

Hard pause because these are-- they're big time. I had to check with their people to make sure it's time for them to come to stage.

[LAUGHTER]

Yes, I had to check with their people. First, I will have Kassidi, our lead of our Autodesk Mind Network.

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Next, I will have Brandon, the lead of our Autodesk Black Network.

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And third but not last, I will have Elissa, the lead of our Autodesk Indigenous Network.

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And last but not least, I will have our global Pride Network lead for the Americas, Athena. Welcome to the stage.

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Outside of ERG work, just let the people know what you do at Autodesk.

KASSIDI SORENSEN: All right. Should I start?

CORDERO DAVIS: Yes. Go ahead, Kassidi.

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Awesome. Hi, everybody. I'm Cassidy Sorensen. I use she/her pronouns. And I am the global lead of Autodesk Mind Network, which is our employee resource group that supports employees with mental inclusion, neurodivergence, and disabilities. But I am also an employer brand manager at Autodesk. So excuse me. I humbly brag I have one of the coolest jobs in the company because it's really just getting to know the people within the company and then providing them a platform to share their authentic stories outwards with the world.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Cassidy.

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Brandon?

BRANDON CRAMER: Yeah. Hey, everyone. Brandon Cramer, global lead for the Autodesk Black Network. My business role and day job is a research manager within Autodesk Research. So this AU has been very exciting because you're starting to hear about all the new AI and different research projects that we're trying to bring to our customers and to our products. So very exciting to be here. I've been meeting with various customers on the future of design and make workflows and what the future of generative design looks like. So happy to be here and happy to be supporting the ERGs as well. Thank you.

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CORDERO DAVIS: Welcome, Brandon. Elissa?

ELISSA FLANDRO: I'm Elissa Flandro. I'm based in San Francisco. And I'm a customer success manager within enterprise customer success. So I work with our enterprise construction customers. And I'm the global lead for the Autodesk Indigenous Network, which just kicked off this year in February.

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CORDERO DAVIS: Athena?

ATHENA MOORE: I'm Athena Moore. I use she/her pronouns. I'm based in Boston. And I'm our North American lead for the Autodesk Pride Network. And then, in my day job, I coincidentally also have the coolest job at Autodesk. I work in research, and specifically in the technology centers, where we house both our internal research as well as a really interesting group of external residents and work together on exploring the future that Autodesk needs to know about.

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CORDERO DAVIS: OK, let's kick it off. So we have nine employee resource groups at Autodesk. Out of those nine, we have four of our amazing leaders on stage right now. When people ask about employee resource groups, sometimes they ask, how are they measured? What do they do? How do they make an impact? And today, you will hear from each of these leads on the various areas of how they make an impact, how they lead with influence, and how their visibility gives them the opportunity to have these amazing benefits.

They have a bonus that they receive annually, mentorship and sponsorship opportunities, career growth and development opportunities. This past summer, we were kicking off our first time having the ERGs at the World Cup in Germany. We are here at AU. And the goal is to be more visible and more present where there is the most impact within our business. So that means driving change and impact across the globe.

This past year, we've grown from just shy of 3,000 employee resource group members to almost 7,000 globally, 40 different languages, and in various parts of the world. So let's give a shout out to our nine ERGs.

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Not on the stage, we have Ramona Beihn, who leads our women's ERG.

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Whoo!

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CORDERO DAVIS: We have Cao, who leads our veterans' ERG.

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We have Guillermo. He's the cameraman right now. But he leads our Latinx ERG. [LAUGHS] And we have Cynthia Chan, who leads our Asian employee network. Yes.

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And I didn't want to put her on the spot. But I'd love to give a shout out to leadership in the room. Jinhee Kuhl, our leader for diversity and belonging right now. Please give her a wave and a shout out. Yes. And my team in the back. Everybody wave so you know who they are as well.

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So we're going to jump right into it. Kassidi, what does allyship mean to you?

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Yeah, I-- so allyship is formally defined as a noun. But for me personally, I think of it more as a verb. It's not a title. It's not a badge of honor. It's really continued and committed action to a meaningful and engaging learning experience. And so I think, within that, allyship can take a lot of different forms. But again, it's just a commitment to that meaningful learning journey.

I think a lot of that starts with taking time to reflect and unpack your own bias and any privilege that you might have individually. But also, on top of that, I think it's really trying to think of yourself as a student and every person you meet as a teacher who can teach you something, especially as it relates to underrepresented groups.

I know, within the disability and neurodivergent community especially, which is what I personally identify with, one of the biggest ways that people can show up as an ally for us is really proactively educating themselves on all of the different types of neurodivergencies, disabilities that exist, but also just being open to hearing our stories and experiences and believing them, most importantly.

Especially in the disability community, there are so many people who have invisible disabilities. And can be really disheartening for them to feel like people don't necessarily believe them when they say that they have a disability, just because you can't see it. And so I think, again, overall, it's really just coming from a place of curiosity, and empathy, and open-mindedness, rather than sympathy or judgment, and just really trying to seek to understand.

I think, when I look back on this year, one of the strongest examples of allyship that I personally experienced actually came from the Indigenous Network. Lynette Keller-- she is a workplace administrator in the Portland office. And she approached our employee resource group saying that she wanted to create a sensory-friendly workplace in the office for neurodivergent and disabled employees.

That was not something that was part of her job. She was not asked to do that. She sits in a position of influence having that job title as it pertains to our workspaces, and saw an opportunity to create positive impact for our community, and took it upon herself to do that. And I think the best thing about it is that she included us in every step of the way, asking our community, what are different things in a work environment that help you feel safe and productive? And so that neurodivergent, sensory-friendly workspace opened up earlier this year, which was really amazing.

CORDERO DAVIS: Amazing. Amazing. Great story, Kassidi. Wow. Wow.

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Shout out, Indigenous Network.

CORDERO DAVIS: Great story. Great story. I'm actually going to move over to Elissa. Tell us, what does allyship mean to you in the Indigenous community?

ELISSA FLANDRO: Yeah. I think it's about intentional inclusion. We're a pretty small ERG in comparison to some of the ERGs at Autodesk. And actually, our ERG started within Slack. There were eight members that all connected. And I think somebody must have tagged me or shared the Slack channel. And I was pretty shocked that there were other Indigenous people at Autodesk, which was really cool. And it was kind of an organic way that we all got together.

And that's how we started thinking about creating an ERG, just sharing a community and being able to share our culture and experiences with each other. We're now up to about 200 people within our membership. So going from 8 to 200, I guess that's good.

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CORDERO DAVIS: Say that again. 8 to 200 members in a year.

ELISSA FLANDRO: 8 to 200. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been-- for us, we've really been focusing on just awareness and education this year. Some of our members have shared with me that they've actually never talked about their heritage and their culture at work before. And so this has been a way for them to just connect with other members and also have a chance to talk about it in a professional setting.

CORDERO DAVIS: That's awesome. That's awesome. And Brandon, what does allyship mean to you and the Black community at Autodesk?

BRANDON CRAMER: You know, it's hard to follow up these two.

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[INAUDIBLE] a lot of the tools and messages that we want to share here. But within the Black network, we've been, I want to say, one of the older or one of the more tenured employee resource groups at Autodesk-- started kind of grassroots and then eventually adopted into the formal diversity and belonging business unit, business structure.

So allyship has meant and been a lot of things for us. We've always organized events around Black History Month. And where allyship comes into play is, when we want to join and participate in these events, who around us who is interested, but not necessarily part of the Black community, can help host those events with us? Can they help take the burden of running a Slido, like events like this, doing survey things, helping with onsite catering events and things like that?

So it often comes in ways of taking the burden off of the community itself and doing that by raising your hand and not always waiting to be asked to do so. So a lot of initiative is shown when we see and recognize allies. And it's really nice to see and do that. And folks don't approach and say, hey, I'm an ally. I want to do this. It's more, they raise their hand. They want to get involved. And behind the scenes, you're like, that's an ally. Like, that's who we want to be doing more work with and having support our community. So one example there.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Brandon.

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And Athena, close us out with, what does allyship mean to you and the pride community?

ATHENA MOORE: Sure. You thought you had a hard act to follow. Yeah. I mean, I think, generally, allyship is really aligning yourself and supporting yourself with communities beyond your own. As someone said earlier, you may not understand their story, but really doing that homework to better understand their experiences and their challenges.

Brandon mentioned, it takes the burden off of those communities that are often marginalized, invisible, vulnerable. I think it's particularly helpful to identify your own privilege, and then, beyond that, to really advocate, step in, call in, stand up for those individuals, even when it's really uncomfortable, because ultimately, it's safer for you as an ally to do so.

I have an example of this. It's outside of my Autodesk life. But I am very passionate about inclusion in sport, and particularly trans athletes. And so I'm part of a mountain biking team that's comprised of women and gender expansive athletes. And I specifically went to a huge bike race last year because the year prior, they had had anti-trans protests in that space. And so I wanted to show up and support riders in case that happened again.

But honestly, that was a really scary feeling, to know that I was going there with very high potential for confrontation. And so I did approach a couple of folks. And again, I was like, I'm pretty conflict averse. This is a very uncomfortable space for me. But I was shocked at how productive that conversation felt. And again, I had to just keep reminding myself, like, this is so much less dangerous for me to do as someone who isn't trans. I'm a queer woman. But I don't have that specific experience. So I think it was really encouraging to see the power in doing that.

CORDERO DAVIS: Wow. Wow. Thank you, Athena.

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So as we've heard today, allyship means many different things-- perspective, lived experiences, being able to not actually show someone how to show up for you, but sometimes even having an expectation on, show up for me, just be there, is a way to foster allyship. Then, in other rooms, it is calling in, leaning in, ensuring that people have visibility in spaces that are non-traditional for their culture.

Our next question that I'd love our leads to answer is, what do you deem are the three key success indicators to drive allyship in the workplace? As we've talked about what it means, now it's, how do I see it? How do I experience it? And how do I live in it? And even, in some cases, accept it. Sometimes it's happening around us. And it's hard for us to accept because we've never had it before.

I'd love to actually start back with Athena, because I loved your story around being able to connect with the community that you're in, but not necessarily.

ATHENA MOORE: Sure.

CORDERO DAVIS: You can't-- a lot of people kind of-- even for myself, being a Black man, we don't all have the same experiences. So I'd love for you to share, what are some of the three key success indicators to drive allyship in the workplace? Or not even in the workplace, in your community in general.

ATHENA MOORE: Sure. So for me, I think three big ones would be education, action, and representation. And the way I think about education is it feels like a lot of times, the reason that people are sort of unsure or nervous to, in our specific case, get involved with an ERG that they don't identify with is they're worried they'll get it wrong.

They don't know enough about it. They don't maybe know the language. And so it just-- it feels too daunting. And I think obviously-- we've talked about this in a couple of examples now-- it's really important to provide the kind of education that doesn't require, again, those marginalized communities to do the work, so finding a way to, again, provide that education.

I mean, everybody has an individual experience, but to just better understand, again, the community's experience, their challenges, the things that feel the most important to them so that we can really support them, because I think we can't do that until we understand where they're coming from. As you said, we don't all have the same experiences. And you never stop learning. So even as you get to know better, there's more work to be done.

For me, action is really thoughtful action. So it feels often more productive to think about efforts that are already happening that you can amplify. Brandon made a comment to that. It's like behind-the-scenes work. I think-- and I'm speaking for myself-- sometimes, when you're coming in as an ally, you're like, you're all in. You're like, I've got it. I'm educated. I want to get involved and be up in all the business.

And sometimes that can sort of dilute the efforts. So I think it's smart to really ask, like, what do we need? As opposed to just doing something new. There may be something that's working that could just use more support. And that's ultimately going to be a lot more impactful than a separate effort.

And then, from the representation standpoint, Cordero, your story actually stands out to me so much because, again, I think it's generally less risky if, say-- if I was on a panel, and it was all people who looked like me, it's a lot less daunting for me to say, this shouldn't be the case. We should mix this up a little bit, rather than somebody who doesn't look like me saying, I should be there, so really working to consider that representation and to boost people up to have those opportunities, champion the work that they're doing, and just get more visibility onto those communities.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Athena. And Brandon, I'll pose the same question for you. What do you deem as three key indicators, not just for you, but for the larger Black community at Autodesk?

BRANDON CRAMER: Yeah. I mean, they're similar to Athena's. I had described them in different ways. So before the session-- I think it's been a long AU for everyone. And I found myself trying to brainstorm my responses to some of the questions or the topic of the questions. And there's, like, conversations, and music, and all this stuff going on around me. So I was like, OK, let me pull up ChatGPT and have a conversation with myself here so I can see what I'm talking about and not just live in my mind.

And it was really interesting, because I was asking the questions. And it was responding first with, I don't experience emotions, or I don't have emotions or experiences. So I can't really provide an accurate response. But here are some things that might guide you based on some information that I've been able to pull and trained on. And had a little bit of a back and forth and dialogue. And I wound up with these three bullets that I'm just going to read because I don't want to butcher them.

So just expanded knowledge, similar to the education. You can educate yourself going very deep into a particular group you want to support, group you want to be an ally for. Or you can go very wide and try to understand, this is me. This is who I-- this is the groups that I represent.

But there's so many different people around me. And how do I become more aware of, I don't want to say everyone, but the folks that you might encounter most? And paying attention to the differences that you can start to see and pick up. So from, like you said, the Black community, I mean, Cordero and I have very different backgrounds, very different experiences, might look similar. But in so many different ways, we are very, very different people.

CORDERO DAVIS: Very different.

BRANDON CRAMER: And you can pick up those things when you start to have that expanded knowledge.

CORDERO DAVIS: Yes.

BRANDON CRAMER: The next one, which is a bit simpler, but it's just participation in and recognition of the different type of affinity group activities, events, things going on. When the Black Network hosts a Juneteenth recognition event, we want everyone to show up. We'll let our allies and supporters know when we want to create a safe space for the Black employees because we want to do a self-reflection and whatnot.

But everything else, if it's not on the invite as, we would appreciate privacy for this event, show up. Take advantage of that opportunity, because they're not always going to be around. And when they do come around, if you can find the time and make the space for it, join in and support, because just seeing the participation rise and go up are some of those ways that we know that we're doing the right thing and seeing the conversation happen as well, is one of the big success indicators.

And then lastly, which is a bit more challenging, but it's this embedded forms of functioning accountability. I think we all want to be accountable for ourselves. I set calendar reminders and alerts on my phone. And they don't always work to keep me on track with things I got to do and what I want to do. So it's trying to find the right ways to hold yourself accountable to the ways you want to support the Black community, for example.

And that could be in partnership with the community as well. So it doesn't always have to be on yourself, but thinking about, how do I make sure I continue to show up the right way, to continue to learn? It's not about educating yourself once. But it's a repeated action of self-reflection, and diving deeper, and understanding more and more about the ways you want to show up and support.

So those are my indicators. I hope they sounded different than Athena's, because I feel like they're similar, but I tried to find some different nuances in my conversation with an AI, so--

[LAUGHTER]

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Brandon. Kassidi, what would you deem are three indicators, particularly with you being a new ERG and having to almost understand, what does this mean within Autodesk itself, right? Not to mention how we have to function in the outside world with invisible disabilities, or shall I say, special abilities, or even at the grocery store when there's not a ramp, if you're in a wheelchair, or you're at a hotel that doesn't have Braille on the door. Like, there's so many things that the world has not, shall I say, embedded into the infrastructure just yet to support all abilities. What would you deem as three key indicators?

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Yeah, absolutely. I think, if I had to pick a single most important indicator, in my opinion, I think it would be psychological safety, whether it be in a social group in your organization, when there is psychological safety, people feel safe to be wrong. And part of-- an inevitable part of the allyship journey is being wrong.

I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten things wrong in this first year leading this employee resource group. And one thing that I am, I think, especially proud of in this journey, though, is that we've worked really hard to make my network a place where that is OK. It's a place where people can feel safe to ask questions and safe to be wrong.

One of my favorite studies to reference is, Google did a study in 2015 called the Aristotle Project. And basically, they did a whole analysis of all of their top-performing teams across the organization. And what they found was that the top-performing teams, it wasn't experience, education that made them strong performing. It was the presence of psychological safety within the team.

And so when I think about what fosters that and what creates psychological safety and really feels allyship, I think about a lot of the things that everyone else has talked about, education being a really big one, inclusive workplace policies and procedures, that also being huge. When we think about it from the disability and neurodivergence perspective, if an experience isn't accessible, if someone has to request an accommodation to participate in an experience, needing whatever in any form, then by design, that experience is not inclusive. So that, I think, is another really big indicator.

And then I would say lastly too, as part of that, just empowerment and voice, so creating opportunities and safe spaces for underrepresented groups to feel that they can be empowered to share their thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and that they'll be heard and taken seriously. I think at Autodesk, employee resource groups are a fantastic way to bolster that. So if you're at an organization that does not have employee resource groups, maybe that can be one of your takeaways from AU, is trying to advocate to start them at your company. But I think all of those things ultimately do contribute to psychological safety, which I feel is really, really important.

CORDERO DAVIS: Wow, wow. Psychological safety. Can anybody in the room relate? Everybody pretty much in the room can relate, right? At a time where you felt like, if I say this one thing, everyone's going to look at me differently. If I share how my emotions really are today at work, I'm not going to be accepted.

If I have something different about me, am I going to be judged? Or am I going to be embraced? Am I going to be celebrated? It's a lot, right? A lot to think about, a lot to consider, when sharing your full self. Or like some people say, bring your full self to the workplace, right? Do we think that's a thing? Do we think that we can 1,000% bring our full self to the workplace? By show of hands, who brings their full self to the workplace? OK, OK. I like it. A nice, hot five. I'm with it.

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Hot five. I'm with it. I'm with it. Excellent. We're trying to get to your level. Maybe you all can coach us after this. And I would say, I probably, in my decade of being in tech, this is probably the most free I could ever be. And a lot of universal factors play into that. And I think that the journey is forever, right? The journey to self-realization, self-love, particularly within the workplace, is something that we will never stop doing.

So you five in the audience, we need a session with you, a coaching session. But I want to stop talking and pass it to Elissa. Elissa, what three indicators-- and I know that we've even had some conversations recently. And I had to check myself.

I'm going to share the example, because it's real. We're having a real conversation. So Elissa has been planning her Heritage Month events. And for me, coming from my culture, performance is something that would be, like, last on the list for me to bring, or shall I say, elevate in an office environment that doesn't necessarily know or have the experience of dealing with Black people. I'll be real.

So when I heard Elissa's idea to bring in performers for Heritage Month, we had a chat. We had to have a sit-down. We had to sit down. And that's because I felt that there needed to be more work around a new ERG. Let's socialize ourselves. Let's work on education, 101, basics for managers, some toolkit, something that people can walk away and say, I'm going to treat-- whether we have five Indigenous employees or a thousand, whenever I meet them, I have something that will support me in treating them like human beings.

And that's what I was looking for, something more tangible. But Elissa's team, they fought me, now. They fought me hard. And they said, hey, we learn. Our people learn through performance. And I said, OK, that's something that I need to take a moment, and take a step back, and maybe even embrace.

So I went on a journey of deeper allyship. Even though I have Indigenous roots in my family as well, I'm more aligned to my Black side, my African-American side. And so I'd love Elissa to share.

ELISSA FLANDRO: Thank you.

CORDERO DAVIS: Your thoughts on indicators.

ELISSA FLANDRO: Yeah. Last week, we had a group of Azteca dancers come into the San Francisco office. And there were three of them. And they were dressed in full regalia. And that's also something that I think is important to note. A lot of Indigenous communities, it's not a costume that they're wearing. Everything that they wear is very intentional. It's sacred. There might be feathers or beadwork that have been collected over time, perhaps passed down within a family over time.

And for us, the way that we educate one another is through dancing, through singing, through storytelling. And that's our primary form of education. So I know, many times, we think about education, and it might be a panel discussion or a slide deck that we're sharing. But I think it's good to remember that there are other formats of education that are also really impactful, and powerful, and really great for learning about.

So that was our event that we had last week in the office. And we actually broadcast-- we had a live stream with the event with four of our other offices that set up watch parties. And it was really fun, I think, a very successful event.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you. Thank you. And for your patience with me.

ELISSA FLANDRO: [LAUGHS]

CORDERO DAVIS: I believe this is close to our last question. But in what ways has your ERG been able to practice allyship to create a more inclusive and equitable work environment? And I know that both of your ERGs are new. So I'm going to lean on our more senior ERGs to dive in first. Brandon, take a shot at it.

BRANDON CRAMER: Yeah. You know, we've talked a lot about events that Autodesk hosts. And I think one of the cleanest, most inclusive ways that we've been able to practice allyship is through partnership with other ERGs. So I mean, just this past month, there have been two great events, one in partnership with the Mind Network-- we brought in Wesley Hamilton to speak with us-- and another in partnership with the Veterans' Network and the Young Professionals Network to bring in Sergeant Major Alfred McMichael.

And both bring totally different aspects and flavors to the message that they're trying to share. But what I really hope that's being seen is there are ways that ERGs can come together and hopefully pull an even bigger allyship crowd to the table. Those who don't fall into either bucket, but they want to learn more, and they see that there's large things happening, they can take advantage of that. So I think that that's been, I would say, one of the best, most opportune ways to do it.

But there are more challenging and more emotional ways that have happened. So I want to think back, 2020, during the murder of George Floyd, ABN held-- in partnership with the Autodesk HR organization, the whole company, we had listening sessions. They essentially said, this is an outrageous time for racial injustice in the country right now. We need to put some resources behind supporting our Black employees.

So there were, I don't know, two or three different private Black employee-only listening sessions where we just got to come together and reflect on what was happening, because you couldn't escape the noise. But you were still at work, trying to do your job, in meetings where no one's talking about what's going on. And the only thing you can think about is, what's going on on CNN?

So the company has shown up in ways to discourse that way. So that's led to many other things. But yeah, the practice can show up in both very positive, uplifting ways, and also some of the more emotional, somber ways that allyship is still needed in both arenas. So we try to show up for each other in those different formats. So I'll stop there.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Brandon. Thank you. And Athena, how has the Pride Network been able to--

ATHENA MOORE: Sure. So I think, in some ways, probably one of the most obvious demonstrations of our allyship and support are creating visible safe spaces in places like pride parades or pride events. But I think there are other really impactful ways that are less visible in some cases. I think all of our ERGs are comprised of a lot of different identities, as we have talked about a little bit.

And for us, even just in the past few years, we have put additional resources into either affinity groups within our own community, like our TGI empowerment group. That's our trans, non-gender conforming, non-binary, intersex group. And that has allowed them to really create a ton of change, including working with Autodesk as an advocate-- and I was thinking of exactly what Kassidi said-- in the way of making changes in Workday so that people can identify themselves appropriately.

It feels small. But it actually has enormous impact to, again, just not see yourself when you go to do something that feels so standard for so many of the rest of us. We were also able to create additional health benefits for people with different identities within our community.

We have put resources just this year-- so we're an ERG that's almost 10 years old at this point. We were only able to start an APAC chapter a few months ago. And there are reasons for that. The cultural understanding and acceptance is very different in different parts of the world. But it was incredibly exciting for us to start in India, expand to Singapore, expand to Japan, and hopefully keep moving from there. But it really does require additional resources to do that.

We have allies directly on our board. So we're always looking for ways to internally, and then within Autodesk, and then outside of Autodesk, create those opportunities for allyship.

CORDERO DAVIS: Thank you, Athena. Thank you. And wonderful work, too, by the way, wonderful work. Expanding into APAC has been one of our biggest goals.

[APPLAUSE]

And yeah, excited to hear that you all are expanding and to support it. Kassidi, if you can give any insight, or maybe how someone on the panel has been an ally, which you already have already.

KASSIDI SORENSEN: Yeah. I think, within the Mind Network ERG-- and again, we are relatively new. Both the Mind Network and the Indigenous Network, we both got our start this year in February. But I think one of the most powerful vehicles within our group to build inclusion so far has been storytelling. We have a member blog where we share stories from our members, whether it be success stories, stories of times where they really struggled in the workplace with their identity, and just really giving a platform to their voices and their stories.

I think we all-- there's all a bunch of-- all kinds of learning modules out there around diversity, equity, and inclusion. There's all these courses. There's so much data and research. But for a lot of people, I think that aha moment really happens when they know and really know somebody that identifies as part of that community. And so I think storytelling has been a powerful vehicle for that.